Now These Are the Names©

Dan Lukiv, M.Ed.
English and Creative Writing
McNaughton Centre, Quesnel, BC, Canada
E-mail: lukivdan@shaw.ca

1.
Sore backs,
Stripes, the swish of
Whips, groans—

They were all fine with Pharaoh,
Who wanted newborn sons 
Tossed into the Nile,

But the “sickening dread,”
O the “sickening dread”!

It sat like sand in his
Mouth.

2.
Dignity: Pharaoh’s gift
To Moses the avenger.

But sheep—helpless,
Easily lost—
Will teach this runaway
To proclaim himself
Nobody.

3.
Wrinkled, now,
This man without
Sandals,
His face concealed—

Astonished before
A bush of flames!

“Who am I?” he
Asked Jehovah.

Soon enough,
He would know.

4.
A Pharaoh will say
No yes no,

Like a man asleep
Strangling his son.

5.
Stubble dried
Under Pharaoh’s
Tongue—

When fire unwraps his work,
Who will watch
His mouth smoke?

6.
Korah, in your bones,
Was there peace
When this lesser messiah
Spoke through lips
Uncircumcised?

Your sons will stand
Like trees beside
David at Ziklag,
And keep watch over
Temple gates.

The earth will open its jaws
And gulp you down,
You and your fire holder and
Friends.

Korah, while Moses
Spoke in lumpy words
And Aaron through lips unbent,
Where these brothers
Wretched?

7.
Drink from reedy pools,
Canals and the aorta
Itself, drink before Hapi
The Nile god;

With one eye closed
To fish upturned,
Drink, pinch the nostrils,
Gulp down the
Syrupy red;

Listen to the silent
Screaming in the air.

8.
Heqt, goddess with
A frog head,
And Thoth, juggler of sun,
Moon, and stars—
O brewmaster of magic!—
Could not turn back the
Croaking tide that filled
Bedrooms, and leapt onto
Couches, and occupied
Ovens and “kneading
Troughs,”

So the priests
Summoned up their secret
Arts, to bring more frogs
Into the land and homes
And inner rooms,

Cancelling this insult.

9.
Pharaoh, embrace
Hathor, Apis,
and Reshpu;
Command the cows and
Bulls to stand up!
Erase the lightning that
Scorns!

Listen to yourself
Crack and pop
Like a bramble bush
Aflame.

10.
These locusts without
Women’s hair,
Men’s faces,
And lions’ teeth—

Without golden crowns
And “iron breastplates”—

Without horse-legs
And scorpion-tails—

These locusts,
Without king or
Commander,
Riding the roar
Of chariots,
Searching for things green,
For linen, leather,
Even varnish.

These locusts chewed
Their body weight each day,
Until a “stiff west wind”
Sent them off into the
Red Sea,

To drown.

11.
Palaeontologists, finding their lot
In the bones of maidservants
Of the hand mill,
Record notched kneecaps,
Acute osteoarthritis of the big toe,
Obvious damage to the last dorsal
Vertebra—

Repetitive stress,
The pushing and pulling of stone
Upon crushed grain upon
Stone.

These detectives of history buried
Do not hear the soothing crunch
As these bent women worked
And ached—
And neither do they hear
How these women would
Weep, like Pharaoh himself,
Helplessly clutching their
Dead sons.

12.
The midnight shrieking,
The wailing,
Like hideous echoes
Leapfrogging from one
Gust of wind to the next

Throughout the land not
Goshen,
Disturbing all the air
Between the stone legs of
Idols, even Ra,

Sun-god, bathed in darkness.

13.
Bones not for hanging
In a tabernacle,
Or temple—

Not for enshrining
In a special place
For relic hunters
Or pilgrims.

Like Moses’ bones,
They would not cure
Leprosy,
Nor become coins
In some man’s
Pocket.

14.
Six-not-four-spoked wheels, ash
Axles, sycamore
Floorboards—dismembered—
Torn apart by foaming
Sea—

Where is the rumble?
The reign of arrows?
The spears that pierce
Fleeing men?

Where are the captains
That drove mad horses
Across dry sand?

Where are they?

15.
With its finger in his eye,
The army, like an Iberian
Bull, charged into watery
Graves.

16.
Faith white like
“Coriander seed,”
Sweet like “flat cakes
With honey”—

There is no stink
Or worms in this,
No greed
Or self-will.

17.
O Amalek! Queen
Of dry Rephidim! King
Of swords against these
Refugees from plague
And sea!
How you fought heavily
On Moses’ arms. How you
Kicked up dust to Jah’s
Throne.

As Hur and Aron held up
Moses’ hands, did you notice
Your name rotting?

18.
From that great thumb of
Lions and wild bulls, arrived
Dusty Jethro, a man of daughters,
To find Moses, a leaf drying
In the sun.

This would not do!
Such a non-Egyptian!

Jethro, priest of Midian,
Spoke words like dew
To Moses whose meekness
Was a rock.

19.
From talking thornbush
To trembling crags—

You lived geometry
In a Horeb circle.

But what mathematics
Could truly measure
Your radius squared
Times…three?

20.
Of course, the first
Law would be the simplest
To keep. For who
Would toss his screaming
Children between the
Flaming jaws of Molech?
Who would sign up his
Boys and girls as temple
prostitutes for Ashtoreth?
Who would hand Mars
The slaughtering knife and
His sons in one breath?
Who would fire up his oven
With one block of wood
And carve another into
A fish-god?

Really, who would
Do such things?

21.
Thirty silver pieces did not
Cover the unborn child
Killed by an angry hand,
Nor could they purchase
Perfect limbs:

Breath for breath,
“Tooth for tooth,”
Adam for Adam—

22.
Jehovah would not
Share his altar with
Any Baal or juggler
Of omens.

No restful odour
Would rise from livers
Peered into.

No child in Abraham's
Tree would slurp
Uncanny waters.

No one would forget
These words.

23.
In Ugarit, home of
Envied timber,
Baal’s bestiality, and
Obedient priests
That cut cheek
And chin
And copulated with
Heifers,

Who figured a kid boiled
In its mother’s milk
Was like a man’s heart
Boiled in cruelty?

The boiling simply made
People fertile.

24.
Like a jewelled sky, cloudless,
These sapphire flagstones,
This vision for mere eyes of men
Gone dumb,
This precious footstool for
Unearthly feet—

How could the God of Israel dwell
In a mere place of wind?

25.
Hard agate, striped,
Layered in light,
Are fingernails, stones for
The dead, treasures in
Havilah—cameos,
Coverings for kings
Debased. Onyx,
Unable to balance the
Cost of  wisdom.

26.
Between Holy rooms,
Embroidered cherubs fold
Into a sea of wool and linen.
They are still, but not like
Gargoyles.
They map the way to a greater
Place, of gold and curtains,
But not for those uninvited,
Who would enter and die.

27.
This fruit of gnarled wood
Clawed even into desert rock
Wets the wick, deep-fries,
Blocks sunshine, soothes
Bruises,

And for cedar and gold it’s
A king’s payment to kings,
This digestible fuel,
And perfumed: smell the maidens
Who rub it on their skin, and glow,
And long for husbands.

But in the priest-fired lamps
Of the gleaming lampstand, the
Flaming oil will last only
Until a greater light
Dies.

28.
Were they lots, these
Urim and Thummim
In Aaron’s pouch, within
Earshot of his thumping
Heart,
Before the curtain of cherubs
And the room that whispered
Of more glory?

How they would command
Even the sceptre of many kings
Who, like nations, would surely
Rise and fall.

29.
Not a tea cup, or
Hand, the liver—and
Its appendage does not
Cover night and day, or
Heavenly abodes of
Deities. Dislodged from
Between the right and left
Lobes, this net across the
Stomach will smoke up
Restful odours to
Aaron's God.

No stars or planets
Or prophecies in oily
Waters. No inquiries
Of the dead, here.
No wisdom of Shinar
Or Egypt.

No voices in the wind
Distract Aaron, or
Any of his lineage,
Yet.

30.
Like prayers lighter than
Space, floating upwards,
Incense smoke curls,
Ascends above Aaron
And the gold-covered acacia
Wood—

31.
Of Uri, Hur, Judah,
This artisan, his blood
And hands fired, had
More than enough to
Sew and melt and
Mould—See the
Gold and silver, copper
And precious stones,
Linen and sealskins,
Embroidery and panel frames,
And anointing oil stirred
Up into handiwork that
Bezalel had no reason to
Boast about.

32.
One hairbreadth
From the grave,
Israel’s sons drank
The golden calf.

33.
This land of syrup—
Fig, date, pomegranate—
And honey
                 dripping
From the lips of maidens
And strange women.

Everywhere, in trees,
Carcasses, sockets
Of stone, bellies of
Kings’ sons whose
Eyes gleam; in
Medicine, and gifts
To princes.

O honey brewed
By lords of the hexagon;
O syrup of fruits traded
For timber and gold
And fine linen.

Hear the echoes of Eden
Whispering in the
Sweet wind.

34.
A man once hesitant—like
A shy captain in a good
Wind—whose crooked
Tongue formed syllables
Painfully, still has the same
Tongue, but in a face
That glows, like a sun
With rays, scaring
Everybody.

35.
All the wise women,
Who will never see the lily spin,
Nor the king of horses
Court too many maidens
From too many lands—
Only they command distaff,
Spindle, and whorl,
Twirling hair of goats
Into wool that protects
Linen of cherubs. These women, 
Recommended by their own
Hearts, spin their fame
With the fabric of rope
And favour.

36.
Oholiab, is your father
Your tent? Do you slither
Along paths and roads? Are you
Horned, with wayside teeth
That pierce the skin of horses
That rear up, sending riders
Tumbling into dust?
Are you a judge, a lion cub, a
Reproach on barren Rachel,
A breath of fresh air from the
Great Sea?

This is your past and future,
But out of Bezalel’s right arm
You have come, born late in life,
With hands of blue, reddish
Purple, and coccus scarlet.
And on your face, no jealous
Blotches crave first place
Or more glory.

37.
One cherub here,
One cherub there,
Gleaming of gold and
Worship, bowed, wings
Spread like a tent
Beneath seated
Jah.

38.
Now the women with mirrors,
Did they draw water for hands
And feet, filling up the smooth
Copper basin, preparing the priests
For the tent and altar? How many
Of their unborn sisters would lie
Down with good-for-nothing men,
Ungoverned by a shrivelled High Priest?
Who would deliver these women
From all things profane and
Gnarled.

39.
A desert prize for the ark and
Altars, tables and poles, this
Acacia wood from tangled
Thickets—O Shittim’s
Bark, immune to insect
Jaws; its yellow blossoms
A breath of Eden.

 
This orange-brown hardwood
Has no mention here.

40.
Not a charm,
This acacian sandwich,
Golden topped;

Its cuboid belly a
Heartbeat of stone words
From Jehovah to all
Of Jacob.

Who would forbiddenly
Touch its gold,
Or place it beside a fish god
That keeps falling on its
Face, or steal it and
Break out in piles?

Who would ask Abraham’s God
To stand aside?

The End
 

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